Can some one answer me this???

[samrock]

Why have the officers from the various rating agencies ( I.E. Moody's etc etc) not have had to haul the butts up to congress to testify, why did they give those sub-prime loans and various other financial entities AAA ratings?? I mean what went into the thought process?.. produce the people who argued in company meetings.. Hey!! This is a GREAT idea.. I mean these companies credibility was on the line.. I want to hear how this happened!!

[Make7]

1. Ummm...

 
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293156-1

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293156-101

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293156-102
 

[JuniperLea]

2. I think Moody's has been subpoenaed...

This has been my question all along. The intial "excuse" was "they didn't understand the investment vehicles" to which I say... bullshit... if you don't understand them, how the fuck can you rate them?


The race to kill the ratings agencies

(Fortune) -- The legal noose is tightening around credit ratings agencies, for practices past and future. Just this week a federal court decision allowed a fraud case against Moody's and Standard & Poor's to move into discovery, dismissing the defendants' claim that their ratings are essentially editorial opinion and hence protected by the First Amendment.

This particular case -- in which plaintiffs charge the deal involved the "shortest-lived Triple A investment fund in the history of corporate finance" -- is just one of roughly a dozen investor lawsuits, making its way through the courts. There are others: California, for example, is asking for $1 billion compensation.

In Congress, the draft financial reform bills could increase liability, unless agencies can show adequate due diligence. Lowering their liability standard to gross negligence -- as Barney Frank's bill currently does -- "could well drive credit agencies out of structured finance," warns John Coffee Jr., a Columbia Law professor and expert in this area. Any new congressional-set liability on agencies' speech could be fought all the way up to the Supreme Court, which is where the industry has promised to go if necessary.

Despite the compelling need for deterrence in the bond ratings system, it's not at all clear that what Congress has in mind will do the trick -- in fact many fear they will compound the mess just when they have an opportunity to fix it.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/30/news/companies/kill_ratings_agencies.fortune/

[samrock]

3. Much thanks ..

Make7

[librechik]

4. they are obviously culpable--and it will come out during the investigations

if it's any good, which I am skeptical about, but hope it will be.